"There's about 30 staff in both Limerick stores. We've got tremendous support from people in Limerick and from our colleagues in the UK.

She said the UK staff "get to trade every day (and) are guaranteed their wages next week", but that Irish staff felt abandoned by HMV UK management.

"We've no one to represent us, or to help us, in this situation," she said.

Well-wishers are leaving messages of support on the group's facebook page.

Ben McGilloway, who works at HMV at the Pavillion shopping centre in the Swords area of Dublin said: "We've been told that we're temporarily being made redundant. If there's a solution to the situation, we'll potentially be re-hired," he said.

"Our pay month ended on Saturday, so we would be due pay on Friday week for our Christmas hours, (including) all the overtime."